Antarctic 100-year-old photo negatives discovery (7 pictures)
While restoring one of the exploration huts in Antarctica, conservators of the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust discovered a remarkable treasure. It contained 22 never-seen-before cellulose nitrate negatives documenting the life of Antarctic explorers a 100 years back. Preserved in a block of ice, these negatives survived to shine a light on the Antarctic heroic era and it’s landscape .
After being frozen for a century, the negatives had to be gently restored by firstly separating them from one another, cleaning and consolidating the cellulose nitrate image layers. After this careful process they were turned into digital positives.
As stated in the media release by the Trust, the box of photographs was probably left in Captain Scott’s hut by Ernest Shackleton’s 1914-1917 Ross Sea Party, an expedition that was stranded after their ship floated away to the sea during a massive blizzard. The group was finally rescued but with three men already lost.
